SOUTH POINT – South Point residents must wait a few more months for village-wide street paving.

Tuesday, September 28, 1999

SOUTH POINT – South Point residents must wait a few more months for village-wide street paving.

With cold snaps coming unpredictably on the heels of warmer weather each day, a paving project might not work out in the village’s best interests.

And, although the project was planned for completion before 2000, weather and finances have directly affected the progress, village officials said.

The nearly $311,000 street paving project, originally planned to begin and end this summer, hit a snag in the funding phase, village mayor Bill Gaskin said.

"We had a paving project planned for the village this year, one that would get most of the streets paved," Gaskin said. "But, for some reason, our funding hasn’t come completely through yet."

Funding through Farmer’s Home, a financial lending institution, is not likely to finish its final stages until well after the paving season is over, Gaskin explained.

"The loan was coming through far too slowly, and that can cause a big problem when you look at the fact that for paving, you’re at the mercy of the weather," he said.

Once the seasons change to cooler weather in the fall, paving the roads and streets through the village would not be worth the money or manpower, he added.

"We just don’t want to blacktop this late in the season," he said. "We want to do the project all together, and if the weather cools down again in the middle of it, the blacktop won’t set up properly and it could hurt the project."

Instead, the village’s new coat of pavement will come this spring, when warm weather is more predictable.

This year’s project is not the first time the majority of South Point’s streets have received major improvements with village money, he said.

"We did this before and, now that the loan is all paid off, it’s time to do it again," Gaskin said. "The money from the $5 tax is used to pay off the loans – it comes from the people for the streets, so we want to make sure it goes directly for that purpose."

Although the time for paving is here, the village streets are not in any way in a state of disrepair, Gaskin said. But, keeping the streets of South Point on a regular paving schedule is an insurance policy against the roadways becoming dangerous to drivers and residents, he said.

"The streets are not in bad shape – but it is time to pave them again to make sure they stay in good shape," Gaskin said.